


Saren's Girl

by MsWikit



Series: Saren the Awful Father AU [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Saren the Awful Father AU, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsWikit/pseuds/MsWikit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the surface, Saren and Shepard are completely different people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saren's Girl

**Author's Note:**

> The song is "Your Girl" by Jessica Riddle.

_“Don’t tell her lies, because she’ll believe  
Boy, she’s still got baby teeth”_

“Where are you going?” she asks, staring up at him with those big green eyes. Those scared, childish eyes. Saren swears he's never seen that sort of fear in a young turian's eyes before. He hasn’t been able to find that child he found on Mindoir again. What happened to her ferocity? Her desire to do anything to survive, to win? 

“I have an assignment,” he lies. 

“When will you be back?” She might cry again. The idea makes him want to shake her. 

“I don’t know.” He leaves the apartment. He sits in the bars for hours, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for the guilt to leave him.

_“And she hears the things you say  
When you think that she’s asleep”_

“She’s too soft,” he says, pacing in front of Nihlus’s projected image. “This was a mistake, taking her in. I can’t train a human. She’s just like all the others. Willing to save her own skin, but when you try to make them work for something other than her own survival-”

“She’s got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Nihlus says, crossing his arms. “And up until now she’s been told turians are horrible spiky monsters. Just have patience.” 

Saren waves the idea away, snorting. “I can’t teach if she can’t learn, Nihlus.”

“Maybe she doesn’t need to be taught right now.”

The argument between student and master continues. A young girl sits by her door, listening to every word. Tears roll down her face. She hugs her stuffed space cow to her chest. 

_“She grew up overnight, because that’s your way  
That’s not right to do to your girl”_

Jane learns the rules. She learns how to make Saren happy. Or at least, keep him from getting angry with her. 

He doesn’t like crying, so she never lets him see her tears. Over time she stops crying altogether. He hates it when she comes to him after nightmares. Saren isn’t going to comfort her, and asking him to only irritates him. So when she dreams of the slavers or of her family, she hugs herself tight and imagines her mother whispering soothing words to her. 

When Jane starts her training, she works hard. She pushes herself until she collapses. It’s what Saren expects of her.

_“She’s alone now, she don’t know how  
But she’ll find her way home”_

She wanders through the Citadel. She keeps her head down and her hands tucked in her pockets. Jane is one of the few human children in this part of the station, and people stare at her sometimes. A couple of Asari ask if she’s lost. She tells them she’s not, but she is. 

It’d be easy to go to a VI and ask for directions. 

But she doesn’t want to go back. Saren is on a mission, and she can’t stand being alone.

_“She’s home, home now”_

“Jane, what are you doing out here?” She hears a familiar voice and turns. 

It’s Nihlus. 

“…I don’t like being by myself,” Jane answers sheepishly.

He sets a hand on her shoulder and guides her towards the rapid transit station. “I’ll stay with you. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

_“You don’t know now, and you see how  
Much pain you made her feel”_

Saren sits in his office and reviews the videos. He requested access to the Citadel’s security footage and was given it without a second thought. A perk of being the Council’s top Spectre. He watches as she walks in front of shops and restaurants, passing people without glancing up once. She isn’t going anywhere. She’s just walking. She’s terrified to be alone, to not move, to stay in a place too long.

Sighing, he stands and steps into the living room.

_“It’s real, real now”_

Jane is sleeping on the couch. She’s clutching that childish stuffed space cow as though her life depends on it. He doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know she’s having another nightmare.

Is Nihlus right? Has he been too harsh with her? Has he only made things worse? Saren walks over and looks down at her. He knows she’s strong. He knows she’s determined. One day she’ll be a great Spectre. 

He kneels down and gently presses his forehead against hers. A turian’s way of showing that they care. Her grip on the space cow loosens, as though his touch somehow alleviates her nighttime suffering. 

Perhaps when she’s a Spectre, she’ll see why he’s done what he has. Perhaps she’ll even forgive him.

_“Don’t try to hide, because she will see  
Boy, she’s all you’ll never be”_

Sometimes he wishes she’d stop getting older. She’s not a child anymore. And when he lies to her, Jane knows it.

“Where are you going?” she asks. Her big green eyes still haunt him. They’re in his nightmares now. He dreams of ancient beings who destroy their world. At the end of it he always turns to see a building toppling on to its side. And she’s always standing beneath it, just staring at him. No matter how he screams or how fast he runs, he can never save her in time.

“I have an assignment,” he says. His research is becoming too sensitive to conduct in his home. He doesn't want Jane stumbling into it. She'll start asking questions he won't know how to answer.

“You’re lying,” Jane says, frowning.

“Insolent girl,” he snaps back.

That silences her. For a moment she sits on the couch, staring past him. Then, without warning, she gets up and heads for the door. 

“And where are you going?” he growls.

“Out!” The door shuts behind her, and he growls in irritation. 

_“And she dreams of all the worlds  
You told her she can’t reach”_

Jane stands against the railing, staring out at the bright lights of the Citadel. It’s the only home she’s known other than Mindoir. They couldn’t be more different. On Mindoir you could walk five miles without seeing another house or person. It was always quiet and beautiful. The red soil, the red cliffs, the green grasslands. The Citadel is always bustling. There’s millions of people here at any given time. 

She wonders what life is like outside of it. She’s been to Palaven. Saren took her once for _Dies ch Retinentius_. The Day of Remembrance, where turians honor their ancestors and deceased family members. He led her to the Arterius family tomb and explained her lineage. Sometimes she likes being around him. Jane loves him. He took her in, saved her on Mindoir. 

But sometimes being around him is unbearable. He’s quick to anger, tough to please. Nothing like her parents had been. 

She stares out at the Citadel and wonder what life is like on distant worlds. She thinks of Elysium, of Ilium, of Earth. She wonders if he’d even come after her if she ran away.

_“She stood up to you one day because that’s her right  
And that’s the way you taught your girl”_

“I forbid it!” he hisses.

“In two weeks I won’t need your consent,” she says. “I’m joining the Alliance.”

Saren hates the Alliance, just as he hates the vast majority of humanity. She knows why; his brother Desolas died in 2157. The same year as the First Contact War. It explains why he looks at all humans with distrust. All except her. 

“Your talents will be wasted there,” he says. “I’ve been grooming you to be a Sprectre, Jane-”

“I never asked for that!” Jane yells.

The argument continues for an hour at least. At the end of it they both storm to opposite ends of the apartment. They don’t speak to each other again. When her birthday comes, she packs her bags and walks to the recruiter’s office alone. 

_“She’s alone now, she don’t know how  
But she’ll find her way home”_

Shepard is twenty-two when her name becomes famous. The attack on Elysium’s largest city is taking its toll on her. But Saren’s training has come in handy so far. He taught her endurance and strength even in the face of disaster. She’s a model soldier, and her commander loves her for that. 

It all happens so fast she doesn’t remember it. The batarians somehow manage to take down the city’s shields. She rallies the colonists. She holds them off at the barricade while the colomists repair the damages to their defenses. She draws the batarians' fire, and kills as many as she can. If they get through the barriers it’ll be a massacre, just like on Mindoir. The people inside this city aren’t soldiers. They’re average people, just like her and her family were. She imagines there’s a little girl in there somewhere who will lose everything she’s ever known if she fails. So Shepard fights. She fights harder and longer than she thought possible. 

When it’s over and the shields are up and the barricade repaired, she falls on her knees. Her squad beats their hands on her back, yelling praises. They call her a hero. 

_“She’s home, home now”_

Word pours in from Elysium, and Saren uses all of his resources to try to find her. For the past couple of years he’s devoted himself completely to his research, but now he’s more concerned about Jane. Nihlus tells him the name of her ship (He’s been keeping in contact with her while Saren has not). Saren can’t determine if it was in the Blitz or not. As he works to find out her fate, he has the news playing behind him.

“Word is coming in from Elysium about an exceptional Alliance soldier, who reportedly held the line at Elysium’s biggest settlement single-handedly.”

He turns. It can’t be.

The stream shows an amateur vid, taken in the heat of battle, of a human woman single-handedly holding off the batarians. 

_“You don’t know now, and you see how  
Much pain you made her feel”_

Saren replays the vid over and over. She uses some of the techniques he taught her. She’s focused, she’s calm, she’s determined. At the end of the vid the shields go back up behind her and she falls to her knees. 

His first fear is she’s injured, or she’s overexerted herself. He doesn’t know what’s happened to her. Is she lying dead on Elysium, waiting to be given a soldier’s funeral? All of this guesswork infuriates him. But he can’t help but feel a bit proud. His girl, his Jane, did that. She’s done what he always knew what she was capable of.

And she did it without his help.

_“It’s real, real now”_

They broadcast the ceremony where she is given the Star of Terra. A general pins it to the front of her uniform and shakes her hand. She looks so strong, so proud compared to the girl he rescued years ago. Saren hears that she’s the youngest human to ever receive that award.

For some time he considers calling her. Perhaps even going to Earth to see her, congratulate her. It’s not too late to make things right between them. 

He goes to call her, but hesitates. Later, he decides. 

Across the galaxy, the newly decorated Commander Shepard goes to call Saren. Her finger hovers over the screen. She hesitates. Later, she decides. 

_“It’s real now”_


End file.
